


I'll Keep Watch

by actingwithportals



Series: Broken Shield stories [3]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Explicit Language, Heart Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Breathing, Near Death Experiences, Other, Post-Canon, Tiso just swears a lot, Wondrous Wanders AU, and you gotta carry their ass to safety, or the void equivalent at least, rated for language, tfw your creaturefriend almost gets themself killed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24627595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: Keeping yourself alive was one thing. Keeping useless bystanders alive was even doable, if the mood struck. But having to now be responsible for keeping others who fought alongside you alive - especially if the "others" in question was someone you inexplicably cared for - wasn't something Tiso thought he was ready to handle.Turns out the universe decided it was going to fuck him over in more ways than one today.(Gift for CosmeerSpots based on their amazing Wondrous Wanders AU)
Relationships: Tiso/Broken Vessel | Lost Kin
Series: Broken Shield stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795171
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	I'll Keep Watch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CosmeerSpots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmeerSpots/gifts).



> Happy Respawn Day, Spot!
> 
> Do not ask me why this ship is a thing. I do not know and I am here against my will and am somehow loving every minute of it.
> 
> Please check out the Wondrous Wanders AU, on AO3 by CosmeerSpots and on tumblr by spotsupstuff!
> 
> (Just in case it isn't clear, this work is not at all related to my We Are Wide Awake Now series. I wrote this in a feverish state yesterday in under an hour where I was consciously aware of nothing else besides my Word document and the fly buzzing viciously around my head.)

_That dumb bastard._

He was almost there, just a little further until he would finally reach the tram station at the top of the Basin, and then they would be safe.

Or at least as safe as one could be when having the void equivalent of _fucking heart failure._

They would be fine. It wasn’t much further. They would be _fine_.

_Stupid motherfucking mawleks with their motherfucking claws and their motherfucking acid piss-shooting contest._

He didn’t need their help. He could have handled it on his own. Just because one of those assholes might’ve nearly taken him out back when he was less experienced, less patient, less _competent,_ didn’t mean that he couldn’t defend himself against one now. He had survived countless battles since then, plenty of which other bugs had been privy to witnessing; he could take down a single mawlek without backup.

So what if he might’ve frozen up at the last moment. That didn’t give the floral dumbass the right to try and take on the brooding eyesore _themself!_

“If you even think about dying on me,” Tiso huffed, instinctively tightening his grip on the abomination to gods and bugs alike that was barely conscious in his arms, his feet working double-time to carry both of their weights as fast as he could, “I’ll stuff that weird-ass shade of yours back into your mask just so I can kill you again myself, you hear me?”

Though it was weak, and the action was punctuated with spasms from the effort, he felt the claws of a hand cling to the lip on the front of his armor as if in an affirmation.

That would be good enough.

“Alright, we’re almost there,” he breathed. “Gotta scale one more wall and we’re home free.”

There was no reaction to Tiso’s words this time.

_Goddammit._

“Hey, you still with me?” he snapped, hefting Brooks up a little higher so that they rested more securely against his thorax. “I swear to whatever damned god is still kicking in the general vicinity of this place that if you die on me and I have to bring back an empty mask to your siblings, that little one is going to commit further atrocities against bugkind just so they can kick your ass in the afterlife and I’m gonna watch! Is that what you want?”

A trembling hand reached up to his face, two claws resting against the center point just below his eyes and jerkily moving downwards towards his mouth. As if that made any goddamn sense.

“For the last time I don’t know that sign language,” he grumbled, slowing his pace as he approached the final climb that stood before where the tram station would come into view. Carefully, with as much conscious delicacy as he was willing to waste time on (what would otherwise be a moot point if his partner wasn’t _literally having pseudo heart failure in his arms_ ), he adjusted his hold once again on the creature he carried so that their weight could be more securely supported with one limb while another grasped for purchase on the rock wall before them.

Good thing he never skipped arm day.

It didn’t help that somehow over the past few months Brooks had grown several inches taller than himself, and the only saving grace was that they were still considerably lighter than something their size should be (the truth of that reasoning was something Tiso didn’t like to dwell on, didn’t _need to_ , not now). But he’d been in worse predicaments than having to scale a wall one-handed before. He could make do.

For now, he just needed to get Brooks somewhere safe.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Tiso groaned, pulling himself and his inconveniently sized package onto the side of the wall. “You keep that void shit of yours stuffed inside your mask where it belongs, and I’ll learn your fucking sign language. Agreed?”

Another weak grasp on his armor, this time around his shoulder. For now, he’d take it.

“Good,” he breathed, heaving himself and his passenger further upwards. Maybe he should start doubling his arm days, actually.

Brooks was still the entire climb up, aside from the steady trembling of their limbs. Tiso might have even found it inconvenient, if not for the fact that the movements filled him with unarguable amounts of worry. Asshole.

“We’re coming out of the mawlek pit now,” he gasped, finally pushing them up over the lip of the wall and barely pausing in his stride to take a moment for catching his breath. “Are you still with me?”

Another grasp; weaker, but distinctly there.

Tiso huffed. “Next time you want to be heroic maybe don’t spoil it by pushing yourself farther than you can handle, idiot.”

Maybe he felt their shoulders shake in a barely contained laugh. Maybe they were just struggling to breathe.

Assuming vessels even did that.

The tram station was finally just a handful of strides in front of them, the metal death box itself idled on the tracks in wait. Someone must have come by here recently, taken the tram either from Deepnest or the Edge of the Kingdom.

Hopefully the poor sucker wouldn’t be coming back for it, because as soon as Tiso stumbled aboard and settled Brooks onto the bench as comfortably as he could manage in his rush, he immediately went to hit the gears that would send it careening west. Though he still couldn’t see the queendom of beasts as anything other than dark and insufferable, Deepnest was at worst a neutral territory, and at best a safe haven, thanks to Brooks’ sister.

And they needed a haven much more than he needed comfort.

The tram jolted to life, and if his reactions had been anything other than excellent, the sudden jerk would have sent Brooks flying to the floor. He would have to make sure the bastard thanked him later for his quick reflexes in catching them.

Once they were stable, at least.

“We’re taking the tram to Deepnest,” he told them, sitting down on the bench as well and helping them to lean against him so that they were half in his lap and half curled against his front. _Keep them somewhat levered up; don’t let them lie flat._ That’s what their sister had told him, in case something like this happened.

As if this could be considered fucking normal.

“Are you still with me?” Tiso asked, for what felt like the hundredth time in the past twenty minutes. Repetition be damned; he wasn’t going to shut up until he was certain they weren’t going to drop dead in front of him.

A single nod, probably more of a pained jerk than anything, but it would do. They dug their claws back into his armor, their grip feeling somewhat stronger than it had on the journey up. Under normal circumstances he might have felt the need to whack their hand away and complain about them scratching the metal.

But the circumstances weren’t normal. How could anything about this be a fucking casual expectation?

 _“Don’t let them wear themself out,”_ their sister had said, outside of their home in Dirtmouth while Brooks was occupied with something-or-other mushy-family-shit with their siblings before their venture off. _“Their heart – or whatever approximation of such a thing that vessels have – is no longer fit to handle duress. Do not let them push their boundaries.”_

He hadn’t taken her words that seriously, instead had blown them off as stupid motherly-adjacent anxieties.

What a fucking idiot he was.

“I can take care of myself, you know,” Tiso grumbled to them. “You don’t need to step in to save my ass, especially if it’s going to put your own at risk. Which means _I’m_ going to have to not only watch my own hide now, but yours too.”

Brooks gripped his armor more tightly, tapping the side of their mask with their other hand and shaking their head with stuttering movements. The action didn’t get very far before they jerked in his arms, their body spasming in what Tiso guessed was discomfort, to put it most pleasantly.

“Maybe don’t shake your head right now, idiot,” he told them. “Just, tap or something if you need to say anything. Once for yes, twice for no; sound good?”

For a moment they almost started to nod their head, but quickly remembered with another shudder and tapped his shoulder once instead.

“Right,” Tiso sighed. “You hanging in there, yes or no?”

One tap.

“Is it better than earlier, yes or no?”

One tap.

“Are you going to die on me anytime within the next three hours, yes or no?”

Two taps.

“And are you the biggest dumbass to ever live for trying to go one-on-one with a fucking mawlek after you already took out two others before it?”

Two taps and four claws digging into his shoulder.

“Ow, alright, alright, cheeky asshole,” he grumbled, whacking Brooks’ hand away. “Seriously, now. Are you going to be okay until I get you home?”

A moment of hesitation; one tap.

“Alright, I can work with that,” Tiso sighed. He brought the hand that wasn’t supporting Brooks’ back and lightly rested it on their mask, rubbing in small up and down motions along the side of their longer horn. “Don’t scare me like that again; you hear me you stupid, floral fuck?”

They curled more tightly against Tiso’s thorax, their body still trembling but distinctly less worryingly than it had been earlier. One tap.

“Good,” Tiso said. “Now get some rest. I’ll keep watch until you’re functioning again.”

Another tap; their claws gripped Tiso’s armor once more, but with less severity now. He could tell by the way their body went slack against him that they had relaxed into something at least in the relative proximity of _not actively dying_.

They were stabilizing; they trusted him to keep them safe.

. . . Dumb bastard.

Without a doubt, he would. He always would.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:  
> 1 The sign that Broo does here is "funny". You do this sign by touching the index and middle fingers of your dominant hand to your nose and swiping downwards towards your mouth, slightly away from your face. Broo is technically doing it on Tiso's face, but that's because A. they're indicating that Tiso is the funny one here, and B. they have that level of comfortability with each other that the action wouldn't be weird. You would not actually do this in typical signed conversation.  
> 2 Broo is apparently much taller than Tiso in Spot's AU but let's pretend they haven't become A Whole Ass Tree Yet, for the sake of Tiso's arms.  
> 3 I dare you all to check out Spot's AU if you've read this far and haven't experienced it yet. Do it.
> 
> Thanks to the WonWan discord for yeeting this idea into my skull, and thanks to Laurie for being my beta! Have your daily dose of angry dumbass bugs in love.


End file.
